


The Haunting of Daniel Jacobi

by PFDiva



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Dreams, Extremely Dubious Consent, M/M, Memory Loss, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 00:09:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16733280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PFDiva/pseuds/PFDiva
Summary: After leaving Wolf 359, Jacobi has a little trouble with his dreams bleeding into his memories.  Or perhaps it's the other way around?





	The Haunting of Daniel Jacobi

**Author's Note:**

> For Jupiter.

Jacobi's room is dark. It is a moist darkness, hot and humid and close in his ear. It breathes. There is someone breathing in his ear, their breaths panting against his skin, hips slapping into his ass.

He becomes aware of the fact that his face is buried in a pillow, his hands pinned over his head, a strong hand holding him up by his hip, a warm body pressed against his back. He shifts--perhaps in protest, perhaps in encouragement, he can't tell, and a familiar voice murmurs in his ear.

"Be still, Mr. Jacobi."

Jacobi gasps, unintentionally opening his mouth to the pillow under his face. There's so much cloth that tastes like his own skin and fills his mouth and nose. He can't breathe.

Jacobi awakens to find his face buried into his arm, and when he moves his arm, it is damp with drool and cold. There is also a disgusting drool patch on his pillow and lower down, his cock is painfully hard, trapped between his belly and his boxers.

He moves his face out of the damp patch to look at his cock, then decides if his subconscious is gonna get him hard to the thought of Kepler, of all people, fucking him, he might as well get an orgasm out of it.

It's not the most enjoyable wank he's ever had: fast, rough, and annoyed, but he still manages to cum, spilling over his hand and ruining his sheets. He'll take it.

He cleans himself up and gets dressed, then blots at the mess, wondering if it's worth it to try or if he should just put it in the laundry and loudly ignore Hera. Someone knocks on his door and he goes to answer because cum-covered sheets can be a problem for _future_ Jacobi.

It turns out to be Eiffel, which is a weird brand of disorienting every time. Eiffel's face has this open sort of guilelessness now. You could see most every emotion Eiffel had before, but those tended to be smug amusement, faux-sheepish apology, nervous placation, occasionally disbelief and true fear, when Kepler did something suitably intimidating.

Now, Eiffel's expressions are all too genuine, and there is no knowingness, no weight behind his gaze when he looks at...anyone. It's almost innocent. Sometimes it makes Jacobi feel guilty, thinking about what Eiffel lost to protect them all. Today, he feels guilty and can't meet Eiffel's too-straightforward gaze.

"What's up, Eiff--uh, Doug?" It's uncomfortable to address Eiffel by his first name. Jacobi isn't former military, but literally everyone else on this ship (barring Hera) is, and they all address him and each other with last names.

Except Eiffel. It seems to be something he lost.

"Hi Daniel," Eiffel says in reply, Jacobi's first name an unwanted intimacy in his mouth, "Isabel said she needed your help with something in the engine room?" Eiffel's expression goes thoughtful then as he carefully recites whatever Lovelace has told him to convey. Hera doesn't add anything constructive, so he's probably gotten it right.

Jacobi claps Eiffel on the shoulder and offers a fake smile, "Thanks for the news, pal. I will be getting right over there." Eiffel smiles back, small and sweet and genuine. Jacobi is suddenly punched in the chest by the thought that Kepler never smiled at him like that--never smiled at _anyone_ like that.

He's seen Maxwell's small, private smiles. Sometimes you spend long hours on a stakeout and you get to talking and things come out. Private joys and uncertain hopes. He saw Minkowski's private smiles since they've started their journey back to Earth. Everyone has moments of uncertainty and insecurity. He's seen Lovelace's and Eiffel's (both before he lost his memory in addition to after), but never Kepler's.

It suddenly occurs to Jacobi that it's probably because Kepler would rather chew his own leg off than show vulnerability. It's a depressing thought and Jacobi doesn't want to think about it, so he heads off to engineering to see what torture Lovelace has in store for him.

It turns out not to be quite so torturous and some hours later, he moves at just the wrong time to crack the back of his head on something metal and painful. Lovelace is demanding his status, but the pain shakes loose an unwanted memory.

In the memory, Jacobi sits nude on the floor with his head on Kepler's thigh, a sense of pleasure at doing _right_ permeating him as Kepler's fingers run through his hair. Everything Jacobi did while under the influence of Pryce's mind-control bullshit was infected with that same feeling of rightness, but Jacobi remembered almost all of it. Where had this memory come from?

"Jacobi!"

He blinks up to find Lovelace yelling in his face from inches away and nearly cracks his head again trying to hastily back away.

Fortunately, she catches him before he hurts himself (more) and moves him out of the way. She's pissed at him now, probably because he scared her, but he takes his yelling-at with aplomb.

He doesn't tell her he was thinking about Kepler, he just apologizes in precisely the sort of insincere tone he knows will irritate her, and it does. They have a spirited argument while they finish fixing things, and then he begs off for brunch, on account of he hasn't had breakfast yet, even though it's almost lunchtime. She growls and kicks him out with relish.

It's a little like going crazy, but Kepler is on Jacobi's mind all day. He was so sure he'd remembered everything from when he was mind-controlled, but the harder he thinks about things, the more gaps he finds. Some of them could surely come from fatigue or boredom or just the passage of time, but some (many) are centered around Kepler. What was Kepler telling him? Doing to him? Could he be making these memories up? There's no way to know.

What he does know is that over the next few days, he has more dreams. Always of being restrained in some way, of Kepler telling him to be quiet, to be still. In the daylight hours, the dreams are followed by memories. Some from his time under Pryce's control, suddenly recalled, some from, well, before then.

Kepler was a good leader: clever, calm under pressure, and capable of planning well on the fly. But he was also a man who took what he wanted with no regard for obstacles that might stand in his way. The first time he came to Jacobi, Jacobi never said no. But he also never said yes.

Kepler never hurt Jacobi, was always careful and conscientious, but he was demanding, and expected Jacobi to be able to live up to his standards. That was the way Kepler always was: He expected Jacobi to live up to his standards.

So Jacobi did.

After a week, the crew of the Sol runs a miniature intervention on Jacobi, and he admits that he's worried he may have lost some time. Hera assures him that in spite of her inability to properly communicate with Jacobi, she saw everything he did. Some discreet questioning assures him that nothing strange happened with Kepler and he is both reassured and disturbed.

He made it all up.

Well, everything during the time he was mind-controlled, anyway.

The rest actually happened.


End file.
